The spaceship was on fire and it wasn't Teresa's fault.
Maximum Brick's external storage container blew off to float into the planet's atmosphere, but Willow didn't join it. Oh well.
Willow's giant full-auto laser carved through another bulkhead, and that's the one that got Teresa pushed out into space.
thunk
thunk
thunk
And then Teresa burst into the corridor from space.
"Whoooo!" Willow spat out the glass she was chewing in shock. "How did that not kill you?"
Teresa shrugged. "I dunno, but you're going to have to do better than that." The emergency bulkheads sealed at long last, and Willow and Teresa just sat there, Willow's Carapace finally able to retract the limbs it was using to secure its user.
Then, Teresa groaned. "You're going to have to find a new way to test those new toys that doesn't involve me ripping them to pieces, they're expensive, also I'm out of practice." It was Willow's turn to shrug. "Find me another competing supersoldier." With that, Willow left Teresa to go to her lair and shower.
Willow took a few turns, to a well-appointed stateroom, where an auburn-haired woman was waiting for her."So. how did it go?"Willow affixed the other woman with a glare. "I already busted you out of prison for your tax fraud and you've had a few years to think about improvements to your project. Why haven't any of them succeeded?"
The good doctor took a nice long pause. "Yes, why isn't the supersoldier dying from conventional weapons? You're not giving me the best tools to work with here. Also, can you keep the smoke downwind of me please?"
The primary reactor of Maximum Brick began to melt down and that was the cue for everyone to bail. Teresa put her fist through the wall of the stateroom, looked in, then used the door right next to the new hole in the wall. "Come on, let's move!"
Willow affixed the Doctor with a nice death glare. "Let me get this straight. You devised a superweapon capable of shredding through high-grade ship hulls, but will somehow not kill one woman? What are we even paying fo-aaaaaa!" Teresa had no time for complaints, she had to rescue Willow and her pet lady friend from their own bickering. It was her duty, after all. Those four diamonds around Willow's neck deserved the best protection.
And that's how Teresa ended up trying to fit her 2,43 meter frame in, Willow's 2,5 meter with Carapace self in, and one regular human woman into a Jackdaw rated for one.
Teresa, given no goal to attain and no adversary to fight, had quickly reverted to almost being a normal teenage girl, if not for being a 2,43 meter supersoldier with a nanorobotic system in her body influencing her hormones to absolute obedience to those she had an emotional bond with and an insatiable appetite for citrus-flavored carbonated sugar water,
Willow was no better, but at least she had the excuse of being the sandwich between the Teresa in the seat and the doctor in front with her entire front mushed against the cockpit canopy. It was fortunate that Teresa had engaged the autopilot.
"Okay, let's play I Spy. I spy something... red.""No fair, I can't see anything past you two. Hold on."
Teresa put her elbow back with such force that it broke a hole into the Jackdaw's cargo hold, and all three fell backwards into the hold.
"There, now I can breathe.""Me too."
Willow breathed a sigh of relief with her actual lungs to celebrate the occasion, then noticed exactly why Teresa had been so insistent that nobody touch her precious.
"Hey, that's my supply of carbonated citrus sugar water. You can't drink that."
"There are like twenty 200-liter drums of it! Didn't our dentist tell you to lay off that?"
"You can't tell me what to do, Mom. I go through that in a day!"
"Go to your room!"
The cargo hold fell silent, just long enough for Willow and Teresa to silently agree to close ranks.
”Elroy, that’s my Serenity!” Old Mag Lun cruised on by and on the bridge, there he was in the company of a woman in an advanced state of deshabille. “Oh you had better clean up!”
”Willow, didn’t you know? The entire sector uses that ship for amorous meetings.” Teresa’s grin couldn’t be bigger. “And none of them clean up,” she helpfully added, before taking a swig of that green carbonated citrus sugar water.
The doctor lady was tripping balls. In an enclosed space with little filtering, the waste chemicals from a supersoldier and a Carapace resulted in hallucinations and euphoria. “Hey little Billy, don’t touch that...” And then she collapsed.
”Mew.”
”No way, what are you doing here?”
”What? Who is here?”
”I’ll come back for you after this trip.”
”Oh."
"Awwww, you're still as adorable as ever, come give me a hug." Teresa walked and embraced thin air right in front of Willow.It was odd, because there was Ryan, their adoptive father, right in front of Willow. That girl needed to learn priorities...
"They do realize that if they turned around, there would be a perfectly good starship to pick them up, right?" Elroy thought to himself watching his boss, her pet supersoldier, and that weird doctor lady she busted out of her imprisonment for tax fraud bicker. Then he remembered that the starship's fires still needed to be put out. A preliminary investigation showed that it was probably Teresa's fault.
